Astrology | Week of June 17, 2010

ARIES March 21-April 19: Istanbul is the world’s only mega-city that spans two continents. Many Turkish commuters take the 15-minute ferry ride across the Bosphorus Strait, traveling from their suburban homes in Asia to the urban sprawl in Europe. I’m seeing a comparable journey for you, Aries: a transition that happens casually and quickly, but that moves you from one world to another. Prepare yourself, please. Just because it unfolds relatively easily and benevolently doesn’t mean you should be nonchalant about the adjustments it will require you to make.

TAURUS April 20-May 20: When you want to get rid of a weed that’s impinging on the autonomy of your growing tomato plant, you don’t just tear away its stalk and leaves; you yank it out by the roots. That’s the approach I urge you to take with the saboteur that has inserted itself into your otherwise thriving patch of heaven. There’s no need to express hatred or rage. In fact, it’s better to be lucid and neutral as you thoroughly remove the invasive influence and assert your right to care for what you love.

GEMINI May 21-June 20: A lot of people never got the mothering they needed in order to grow up into the confident, secure lovers of life they have the potential to become. But even greater numbers suffer from a lack of smart fathering. And that happens to be the deprivation that’s most important for you Geminis to address right now. If there was anything missing in the guidance and mentoring you got from your actual daddy, I urge you to brainstorm about how you could make up for it in the coming months. For starters, here’s one idea: Is there any father figure out there who could inspire you to become more of your own father figure?

CANCER June 21-July 22: In 1965, two Russian cosmonauts orbited the Earth in the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. Due to equipment problems, they had to land the vehicle manually. Instead of hitting the target area, they mistakenly set down in rugged mountainous country covered with deep snow. While they waited overnight inside their capsule, wolves gathered outside, howling and pacing. But the next day their recovery team reached them and scared off the hungry predators. Soon they were safely on their way back home. Let this little tale be an inspiration to you, Cancerian, as you come in for your landing. Even though you may not end up quite where you intended, there’ll be a happy ending as long as you wait for your allies to be ready for you and you don’t try to rush your re-integration.

LEO July 23-Aug. 22: The ancient Greek philosopher Plato advocated the use of dogs in courtrooms. He thought that canines were expert lie detectors, that they always knew when deceit was in the air. I suspect you’ll display a similar talent in the coming days, Leo. You will have a sixth sense about when the truth is being sacrificed for expediency, or when delusions are masquerading as reasonable explanations, or when the ego’s obsessions are distorting the hell out of the soul’s authentic understandings. Harness that raw stuff, please. Use it discreetly, surgically and with compassion.

VIRGO Aug. 23-Sept. 22: If you’ve been aligned with cosmic rhythms these past few weeks, Virgo, you’ve been rising higher and feeling bolder. You’ve taken a stand on issues about which you had previously been a bit weak and cowardly. You have been able to articulate elusive or difficult truths in graceful ways that haven’t caused too terrible a ruckus. Your next challenge is to rally the troops. The group that means the most to you is in need of your motivational fervor. I suggest that you think deeply about how to cultivate more dynamic relationships among all the parts, thereby energizing the whole.

LIBRA Sept. 23-Oct. 22: “Human beings are in a state of creativity 24 hours a day,” wrote Raoul Vaneigem in his book The Revolution of Everyday Life. “People usually associate creativity with works of art, but what are works of art alongside the creative energy displayed by everyone a thousand times a day?” I say amen to that. All of us are constantly generating fresh ideas, novel feelings, unexpected perceptions and pressing intentions. We are founts of restless originality. But whether we use our enormous power constructively is another question. Typically, a lot of the stuff we spawn is less than brilliant and useful. Having said that, I’m pleased to announce that you’re entering a phase when you have the potential to create far more interesting and useful things than usual — longer lasting, too.

SCORPIO Oct. 23-Nov. 21: If you have been engaged in any S&M scenario, even metaphorically, now would be a good time to quit it. Whether you’re the person who’s whipping or being whipped, the connection is no longer serving any worthy purpose. The good news is that freeing yourself from compromising entanglements will make you fully available to explore new frontiers in collaboration. You will also be blessed with an influx of intuition about how to reconfigure bonds that have become blah and boring. And what if you’re not currently involved in any S&M scenario? Congrats! Your assignment is to transform one of your pretty good relationships into a supercharged union that’s capable of generating lifechanging magic.

SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22-Dec. 21: I wouldn’t say that things are about to get darker for you, but they’re definitely going to get deeper and damper and more complicated. I don’t expect there to be any confrontations with evil or encounters with nasty messes, but you may slip down a rabbit hole into a twilight region where all the creatures speak in riddles and nothing is as it seems. And yet that’s the best possible place for you to gain new insight about the big questions that so desperately need more clarity. If you can manage to hold your own in the midst of the dream-like adventures, you’ll be blessed with a key to relieving one of your long-running frustrations.

CAPRICORN Dec. 22-Jan. 19: The eulachon is a fish that lives off the Pacific Coast of North America. Its fat content is so high that the Chinook Indians used to dry it, thread it with a wick, and employ it as a candle. The stink was bad, but the light was good. Remind you of anything in your life right now, Capricorn? Something that provides a steady flow of illumination, even if it is a bit annoying or inconvenient? I say, treasure it for what it is and accept it for what it isn’t.

AQUARIUS Jan. 20-Feb. 18: When I was growing up in Michigan, playing in the snow was a great joy. As much as I loved the arrival of each new spring, I endured a mourning period as the ground’s last patch of dirty sleet melted. Once in late March, though, I talked my mom into letting me store five snowballs in the freezer. It wasn’t until my birthday in late June that I retrieved the precious artifacts. I was slightly disappointed to find they had become more like iceballs than snowballs. On the other hand, their symbolism was deeply gratifying. I’d managed to invoke the tangible presence of winter fun in the summertime. I urge you to attempt a comparable alchemy, Aquarius. Figure out how to take a happiness you have felt in another context and transpose it into where you are right now.

PISCES Feb. 19-March 20: “Even Norah Jones got bored with Norah Jones,” wrote critic Aidin Vaziri in his review of her recent concert in San Francisco. For years she has tranquilized us with her safe, soothing music, he said, but not any more. It was like she was fresh from a “makeover reality show.” Her new stuff, which included an “indie-rock jolt” and quasi-psychedelic riffs, exuded grit and defiance and weirdness. Norah Jones is your role model for the next couple of weeks, Pisces. If there have been any ways in which you’ve been boring yourself, it’s prime time to scramble the code.